"Do you command that the pipes be lighted?" asked the harsh voice.
Rita desired to answer, "No," but heard herself saying, "Yes."
Thereupon, from a thousand bowls, linking that lonely palm to the
remote horizon, a thousand elfin fires arose--blue-tongued and
spirituous. Grey pencilings of smoke stole straightly upward to the
sky, so that look where she would Rita could discern nothing but these
countless thin, faintly wavering, vertical lines of vapor.
The dimensions of the lacquered casket had increased so vastly as to
conceal the kneeling figure of Mrs. Sin, and staring at it
wonderingly, Rita suddenly perceived that it was not an ordinary
casket. She knew at last why its shape had struck her as being
unusual.
It was a Chinese coffin.
The smell of the burning opium was stifling her. Those remorseless
threads of smoke were closing in, twining themselves about her throat.
It was becoming cold, too, and the moonlight was growing dim. The
position of the moon had changed, of course, as the night had stolen
on towards morning, and now it hung dimly before her. The smoke
obscured it.
But was this smoke obscuring the moon? Rita moved her hands for the
first time since she had found herself under the palm tree, weakly
fending off those vaporous tentacles which were seeking to entwine
themselves about her throat.
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